AG investigating consulting firm

The Illinois attorney general's office is investigating International Profit Associates Inc. (IPA), a Buffalo Grove-based management consulting firm that caters to small businesses.

A spokeswoman for Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan says staffers in the consumer-protection division are examining practices at IPA after meeting with company officials in mid-January and receiving about 100 complaints from consumers in recent years.

"We don't know that to be true," responds John Burgess, IPA's founder and managing director, when asked to comment on the investigation.

IPA has an "unsatisfactory" rating from the Better Business Bureau of Chicago and Northern Illinois, which has received 451 complaints about the firm over the past three years. The majority of complaints stem from "high-pressure sales tactics by its telemarketers and/or very aggressive collections," according to the bureau's report on the company. A source close to the attorney general's investigation says the probe centers on IPA's "marketing techniques."

Mr. Burgess deferred all questions on IPA's practices and consumer complaints to an outside spokesman, who was traveling and could not be reached for comment.